Not even the highest security prison has managed to keep behind bars a 32-year-old robbery accused, who has become famous in Senegal for his escapes.
Bayeux Montu Fal, also known as the “escape ace” or “genie”, escaped from Gran-Yof prison in a populous Dakar district on Saturday night, Bayeux Sar, a prison official, said today. .
Authorities have already launched an investigation to determine how the 32-year-old man managed to escape and if there were any accomplices. Shar said he has not yet been located and is wanted. Fal has been arrested several times for “armed robbery” and “composition and gang”. He has escaped from various Senegalese prisons ten times to date. He was last arrested in 2016, on the border with Guinea, and has since remained in a Dakar prison.
“I did not escape to sabotage or because I am a criminal or because I am afraid of prison,” but as a sign of protest “for the delay in the trial”, he explained in an audio message broadcast on the private television channel ITV.
“I am in Senegal,” he added, without specifying exactly where. However, he assured that he will appear in court as soon as his lawyers inform him that his trial is starting.
Human rights groups often denounce the conditions of detention and overcrowding in Senegalese prisons, the fact that defendants are systematically remanded in custody, and the length of time detainees are held in pre-trial detention.
In August 2019, the Government presented a bill that will allow electronic monitoring of defendants, in order to avoid long pre-trial detention, but this proposal has not yet been implemented.
